The Orthodox Faith, as it existed from
circa A.D. 37 to the Great Schism of A.D. 1054 -The Church of Wales, England, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany and
Ireland in the first Millennium of Christianity

When our
Lord Jesus Christ founded the Church, He commanded His
Disciples to take the Gospel to the very ends of the
earth. Within just a few decades the Church had spread
to the British Isles and was soon formally established
amongst the peoples of Britain.

THE FIRST THREE
THOUSAND YEARS

We now know that the British Isles have
been regularly populated by an relatively advanced,
organised society for between six and seven thousand
years. The archaeological evidence of sites such as
Cadbury Castle in Somerset shows continuous occupation
by advanced, settled people from around 3250BC to
AD1060. At the beginning of the period, the land was
inhabited by a race often erroneously referred to in
earlier text books as the ”Iberians”. These people had
an organised religion, which they held in common with
their contemporaries in ancient Gaul. Their religion
caused them to be considerable builders, yielding such
massive structures as Avebury and the lesser Stonehenge
built around 4700BC, as well as many others.

The later Celts apparently migrated in
two fairly distinct waves, possibly beginning about
700-500BC, apparently absorbing rather than conquering
the earlier inhabitants in the process. The first wave
was the Goidels (Gaels), who were followed by the
Britons.

The incoming Celts appear to have held
the religion of the native people, which was druidism.
Druidism taught an eternal life after death, the
transmigration of souls, a supreme (trinitarian) god and
a pantheon of lesser gods. The Celts of the British
Isles were at the western end of the "Celtic Crescent"
which arched above the Roman Empire from the British
Isles (Britain) in the west, through Britony-Galicia in
Spain, Bretagne-Gaul in France up to Galicia in southern
Poland right across to the last Celtic expansion around
300BC of Galatia in Asia Minor.

ROMAN BRITAIN

The original Roman invasion of Britain
began with the arrival of Julius Caesar in 55BC. After
ninety years of peace, the Britons again caused trouble
and Claudius Caesar sent an army under Plautius to
conquer the newly troublesome British in AD43. The
Romans never fully conquered the British Isles, it was
never really their intention to do so, but merely to
secure Gaul. The later part of the Roman rule in
Britain can perhaps be characterised as largely
peaceful, with Roman and Romano-Briton civilians and
retired military sharing the administration as a settled
and highly civilized middle-upper class. While the
administration was carried out in Latin, the Celtic
language remained predominant throughout the country.

THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE BRITISH ISLES

In the tradition of the Church,
Christianity was brought by people from the region of
Ephesus and established in the British Isles by AD45.
This is somewhat bolstered by the fact that the Church
in the British Isles maintained that its original
Liturgy was that of Saint John, who is known to have
lived in Ephesus in his later years. Saint Gildas the
Wise (a Welsh monk, pupil of St. Illtyd. + AD512)
maintained in his History, that Christianity came to
Britain in the last year of Tiberius Caesar i.e: AD37.

It is interesting to note that the
antiquity of British Church, was unequivocally affirmed
by five Papal councils: The council of Pisa (1409), the
council of Constance (1417), the council of Sens (1418),
the council of Sienna (1424), and the council of Basle
(1434). These five councils ruled that the Church in
the British Isles is the oldest
Church in the gentile world - this despite
the fact it would have been politically advantageous for
the popes to have ignored the fact, given the
possibility of thereby offending France and Spain which
were at the time, far more powerful than England. It
seems reasonable therefore, to assume that the
documentary evidence in favour of the antiquity of the
Church in the British Isles must have been
overwhelming. Sadly, much of that evidence is now lost,
destroyed during Henry VIII's dissolution of the
monasteries and the dispersion/destruction of their
libraries then, and during the Civil War.

Saint Aristibule (Aristobulus, one of
the Seventy Apostles mentioned in the Gospel of Saint
Luke 10:1) who died circa AD90, as Bishop of Britain,
was one of the early organisers of Christianity among
the Celts in Britony and Britain, according to Saint
Dorotheus of Tyre. The Orthodox Church regards him as
the “Apostle of Britain” and accords him that title. It
is to him (and others with him) that we attribute the
beginnings of The Church in the British Isles circa AD
37-45.

Recent archaeology suggests the oldest
church building remains so far positively identified as
such in Britain, as dating from approximately AD140. We
also know of domestic Christian remains of earlier date
in the south of Britain. Later we have the record of
the ruler of part of south Wales-Western England, Saint
Lucan bringing Saint Dyfan (often Latinised as Damian)
and Saint Fagan (often Latinised as Fugatius) to his
area circa AD160-180. Then we have Saint Mydwyn and the
Bishop, Saint Elvan, both of whom were Britons, of
exactly the same period. Bishop Elvan reputedly died at
Glastonbury circa AD195.

The Roman historian Tertullian, in a
tract written circa AD208 mentions the Church in Britain
as having reached parts as yet unconquered by the Roman
Army, which tells us that the Church had moved beyond
the Roman pale and was certainly indigenised, as the
actions of Saint Lucan clearly show. Origen, writing
thirty years later, also records the Church in Britain.

Saint Dyfan (+AD190c) is regarded as the
first Christian Martyr of the British Isles (and hence
the name of the town of Merthyr Dyfan just south of
Cardiff in Wales). The first recorded Christian Martyrs
in England were the layman
Saint Alban, Bishop
Stephen of London, Bishop Socrates of York, Bishop
Argulius of London, Bishop Amphibalus of LLandaff,
Bishop Nicolas of Penrhyn, Bishop Melior of Carlisle,
and others during the period AD300-304.

Constantine, the son of Constantius I (Chlorus)
and Flavius Helena (said by Saint Ambrose to have been
an innkeeper and by Chesterton and later historians to
have possibly been a Briton) accompanied his father from
Boulogne to York. There, in AD306 his father died and
Constantine was proclaimed Augustus - ruler of the Roman
Empire - at York. Eventually he was to become known to
posterity as the Emperor Constantine the Great.
Constantine together with Licenius issued the so-called
Edict of Milan recognising Christianity.

In 314 the Bishop of Eborius (York),
Bishop Restitutus of London and Bishop Adelfius of
Caerleon and a large retinue attended the Council of
Arles.

Saint Athanasius specifically states
that the British Church recorded her agreement to the
decisions of the First Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea
in 325.

Again, in 359, British Bishops attended
the Council of Rimini. The archaeological evidence of
this period points to the chapels at Lullingstone and
Silchester as dating from about 345.

In short, the Church was not only quite
well established over much of the British Isles by this
time, but we have Saint John Chrysostom himself,
testifying that it was fully Orthodox in its doctrine.
(Chrysostomi Orat.’O Qeos Cristos)

Very soon after the importation of
monasticism from Egypt to the Eastern Empire, it
appeared in the British Church and quickly became
extremely popular. In fact, the British Church in the
fifth century and thereafter, was organised on heavily
monastic lines, to a far greater extent perhaps than
other parts of the Church. Hundreds of monasteries and
hermitages, great and small, spread out across the
British Isles. The monastic life appealed to the
mystical bent of the Celtic mind.

THE DEPARTURE OF ROME

During the fourth century, eastern
Britain began to be subjected to raids from Saxon
pirates. Rome found herself defending Gaul and the
centre of the Roman Empire from northern invaders. She
could no longer attend to the provinces of Britain, and
when Alaric sacked Rome in AD410, the flow of soldiers
and administrators to Britain ceased entirely. The
majority of Britain now devolved to regional government
very much according to the particular Clan Chief or
“King”.

THE THREE DUKES

This brings us to a period that might
conveniently be described as the period of the Three
Dukes (Dux Bellorum), or Generals (who may have held the
Celtic title of Pendragon) who led the armies of various
combinations of Celtic Clans. The first of these was
Vortigern who operated from central Wales and Gloucester
from about 425 until 457. Duke Vortigern was followed
by Duke Emrys. The chronicler Saint Gildas records that
he led the armies from 460 to the mid 480s. Arthur
appears to have taken the position around the mid-late
480s. The chronicler-Priest Nennus records that Arthur
wore an Icon of Saint Mary at the Battle of Bassas and
an Icon of the Crucifixion for the whole of the three
days of the Battle of Mount Badon (Liddington Castle) in
516.

During the period of the Three Dukes,
the Church benefited enormously from the relative civil
security. In Emrys’ time, Saint Germanus, Bishop of
Auxerre visited Britain twice, advising the British
Bishops in setting up schools for Ordinands, and
securing the banishment of the few remaining Pelagian
heretics. He led a Christian army in an apparently
bloodless victory against the combined Picts and Saxons
in the north in 431c. He is recorded as preaching very
effectively at Glastonbury during his second visit in
447. From this time the monasteries largely ran the
government of the Church.

THE MONASTIC CHURCH

In 397 Saint Ninian founded the
monastery at Whitehorn in Galloway and began preaching
among the Picts and the Scots. This, together with
numerous smaller cells of hermits and semi-coenobitic
monastics, marked the beginnings of a renewal in the
life of the Church in the British Isles.

During this period, the Church
government was largely carried out from rural
monasteries, where the Abbot ruled the Church. He might
(in a great monastery) have several choir-bishops,
consecrated because of recognition of their sanctity of
life. The Bishop Ordained, Chrismated and Consecrated,
while the Abbot administered. Fairly soon, the
positions of Abbot and Ruling Bishop began to be
combined. Overall the prevailing atmosphere was that of
the sanctity of numerous monastic bishops, abbots and
hermits. The monasteries were the administrative,
educational and missionary centres of the Church. It
was from these great monastic centres that the Church in
the British Isles later in the first millennium, sent
out her renowned monks as far as Germany, Kiev and
Scandinavia. Some idea of the calibre of the Church
leaders at this time may be gained from the following
few representatives.

Around the year 400, the Deacon
Calporans of (modern) Cumberland, himself the son of a
Priest, had a son, Patrick. About 410, Patrick was
kidnapped by raiding Irish pirates and taken to Ireland
as a slave. After some six years, he escaped to Gaul
where he entered a monastery and was trained to the
priesthood. He returned to his family near the Solway
of Firth around 426 and was Consecrated Bishop in 432
when he took up residence in Ireland.
Saint Patrick
ruled as monk-Bishop of Armagh for the next thirty
years, founding many monasteries and building up the
Church in Ireland until the time of his death in 464.

By AD450-500 there were some great
1,000-1,500 member monasteries in Wales and the west.
The Church in the British Isles at this time tended to
look to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem as the centre of
the Church, as it was largely cut off from the Roman
Church (insofar as it was ever connected). While the
doctrine of the British Church is well attested to as
being entirely Orthodox (The Pelagian heresy never
gained more than a passing popularity in Britain and was
apparently completely eradicated by the 420s-430s) the
system of Church government and general atmosphere
differed considerably from that of the Roman Church.

Born just after the turn of the century,
Illtyd became a courtier and minister in Wales. He
abandoned that life and joined the monastery at
Llancarvan under the guidance of its abbot, Saint Cadoc.
Later Saint Illtyd left Llancarvan and went to lead the
great monastery of Llantwit (Llanilltyd) known
subsequently as the house of saints because it produced
so many leaders of the Church. Saint Illtyd reposed in
470 and is commemorated on the 6th of November.

Saint David (Dewi Sant) was born early
in the fifth century, educated at Hen Vynyw and trained
for the Priesthood for ten years under Paulinus the
scribe. He founded the extremely ascetic monastery of
Menevia. Saint David as Abbot was noted for his works
of mercy, extreme asceticism and habit of numerous
prostrations. The Synod of Brevi elected him Archbishop
and his see was set at Menevia (St. David’s).

History tells us that some of the most
powerful leaders of the British Church (Saint David,
Archbishop of Menevia, Saint Padarn, Bishop of Avranches
and Saint Teilo later Archbishop of Menevia) did
obeisance to the Patriarch of Jerusalem in apparently
deliberate preference to any other Church leader. It is
possible that some were actually consecrated by the
Patriarch of Jerusalem. To the Celtic mind, the centre
of the Church was the place where Jesus had actually
ministered. Saint David is said to have travelled to
other Celtic lands and we have records of his presence
in Cornwall and in Brittany in 547-48 - he was
enormously influential throughout the British Isles and
was responsible for much consolidation of the Church and
for holding both the clergy and laity to tight
discipline. Saint David reposed in 601, his feast is
the national day of Wales, the first of March.

Saint Columcille was born in 521 at
Gartan. He travelled with some monks to Iona in
Scotland where he founded the famous monastery at Iona
on an island off the Atlantic coast. There he lived,
alternating between the hermit’s cell and ruling the
Abbey; sending out his monks to preach among the
people. From his successor Abbot, Saint Adamnan, we
have a biography which tells graphically of a tall man
of very forceful personality, who performed miracles
during his lifetime.

Columcille built the Monastery of Iona
and set up subsidiary monasteries in Hinba, Maglunge and
Diuni. Three surviving poems are ascribed to him
including Altus Prosator which concerns the after-life
and final judgement. He took great care with the
training of the monks, some of whom were converts from
among the Anglo-Saxon invaders of eastern Britain. He
converted Bude, king of the Picts, and in 574, he
crowned King Aiden of Dalriada. Columcille was a Bishop
of great influence in Scotland and Ireland as well as
the whole north of England until his death in the church
just before Mattins on the 9th of June, 597.

THE RETREAT OF THE CELTS AND RISE OF THE SAXON
EAST

After the Battle of Mount Badon, the
Britons could no longer hold their ground. The Saxons
increasingly migrated from Europe, filling the Saxon
Shore and pressing westward. They established a number
of heathen kingdoms in the south-east, east and
north-east of what is now England.

THE ROMAN MISSION

In AD597 the Patriarchate of Rome
decided to mount what can only be described as an
ecclesiastical invasion of the British Isles. This came
in the form of an uninvited “mission” established by
Saint Augustine at Canterbury in spite of the fact that
he found Bishop Liuthard and the church of Saint Martin
already there at Canterbury. Bishop Liuthard was close
to the court of King Ethelbert who was not himself a
Christian, but Queen Bertha was. Undaunted by the
existence of the long-established Church in the British
Isles, Augustine proceeded to work among the
non-Christian Saxon invaders living in Kent.

Claims that Augustine was Primate of
Britain are spurious, given that the Church in the
British Isles already had its own Primate - the
successor to Saint David, (who had died some 20 years
before Augustine's arrival). The Church in the British
Isles had approximately 120 bishops and many thousands
of priests, monks and nuns. Augustine tried to assert
Pope Gregory the Great's authority, but his efforts were
not in any great degree successful beyond the
south-eastern corner of the island where he worked to
convert the invader Saxons.

To resolve some differences between the
Church in the British Isles and the invading Roman
mission, a council was held in 664 at Whitby in
Yorkshire, resulting in the Celtic Church and the Roman
“mission” being formally amalgamated into one Church,
albeit the Celtic party resumed their own customs in
their part of Britain. Because this joining was
concurrent with the large-scale conversion of the Anglo-
Saxon invaders of eastern England, this continuing
Church was Celtic-Anglo-Saxon in makeup and began to
take on a character of both races. It was an integral
part of the Orthodox Catholic Church, and, since the
Papacy at that time had hardly begun to develop in the
sense that we now know it, this Church of the British
Isles remained a Local Church within the world wide
Orthodox Catholic Church.

In the year 666,
Saint Theodore of
Tarsus, a Greek monk was appointed to the See of
Canterbury. He arrived in 669 at the age of 67 and
began a twenty year episcopate of trying to persuade the
British Bishops to accept him as Archbishop. Theodore
was opposed by Rome in some of his decisions, most
obviously in his disputes with Saint Wilfrid. In the
end, while he did much to organise the Church in the
British Isles, so divided by the Synod of Whitby, his
power extended really only to the Anglo-Saxon part of
the country. Theodore initiated the series of Holy
Synods, starting with Hertford in 672 at which the
famous ten decrees were passed, paralleling the canons
of the Council of Chalcedon. The second Synod at
Hatfield produced a statement of orthodoxy regarding the
monothelite controversy.

At the end of the Seventh Century,
(Saint) Wilfrid, now the Bishop of York, asked the
Patriarch of Rome to intervene in his quarrel with
(Saint) Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury. When
the matter came up before the Witenagamot - the Royal
Parliament, the members - Aldermen, Thegnes and Bishops
- rejected the Pope's adjudication. The Witenagamot
said, in effect, "Who is this Pope and what are his
decrees? What have they to do with us, or we with
them?" By way of an answer they burned the Papal
parchment and put Wilfrid in prison for having the
temerity appeal to an outsider.

In A.D. 747, the principle was
reasserted again - and just as pointedly. It was
proposed at the Witenagamot to refer difficult questions
to the Bishop of Rome - as primus inter pares, first
among equals. The Witenagamot, however, declared it
would submit only to the jurisdiction of the British
Archbishop.

THE HEPTARCHY AND BEYOND

The period of the so-called “Heptarchy”
extended roughly from 600 to around 850 and owes its
name to the prominence of the new Saxon kingdoms of
Kent, Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex
and Sussex of what is now England. This was not a
politically stable period, with the continuation of a
struggle for supremacy between these kingdoms aided by
whatever allies they could marshal. At the outset of
the period, Kent was overlord of Essex and Sussex and
arguably the most powerful kingdom in Britain. However,
during the sixth century, Northumbria began to take the
lead. Northumbria consisted of two parts including most
of modern Yorkshire. Under King Edwin, it incorporated
the Saxon kingdom of Berenice, which started out not
being Christian. However it was soon converted. At its
northern edge Edwin built Edwin’s Burgh on the Firth of
Forth (Edinburgh).

Edwin was killed in battle with the
combined armies of the heathen kingdom of Mercia and the
Christian Kingdom of Wales in 632. The brothers Oswald
and Oswy had, during Edwin’s rule, lived in the
Monastery at Iona. Upon Edwin’s death, Oswald led an
army of Northumbria against the Anglo-Saxons and became
King of Northumbria. In 634
Saint Aidan, at King
Oswald’s invitation, came from the Monastery at Iona, to
set up his See at Lindisfarne, as Bishop of all of
Northumbria. Here he founded his monastery, staffed by
a group of monks who had accompanied him from Iona.
Oswald was killed in battle 642 and was subsequently
canonised by the Church.

THE BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL UNITY OF ENGLAND

Before his death, King Penda admitted
Saint Aidan’s missionary monks to Mercia, thus paving
the way for the conversion of this Saxon kingdom. His
son was Baptised and married a Christian Princess. For
most of the next century the Kingdom of Mercia, with its
territory running south from the Humber to the Thames
and from the Welsh Borders to the Wash was in the
ascendant. Mercia’s supremacy culminated in the reign
of his cousin, King Offa (757-96).

King Offa is regarded as the first King
to be termed King of all England. He dealt with his
younger European contemporary, the Emperor Charlemagne
as an equal, signing a commercial treaty with him in
796, while Charlemagne is recorded as having regarded
him as an outstanding ruler.

In 850-851 the heathen Danish raiders,
who had for some time contented themselves with summer
raids, decided to winter on the Isle of Thanet. This
was in effect the beginning of the terrible Danish
invasion which was to provide the Church with so many
martyrs, especially in the year 870.

King Alfred eventually defeated the
Danes and consolidated his rule, maintaining peace until
the Danes attacked from France again in 892. He finally
directed their defeat in 896-7.

Both Offa and Alfred were law-makers,
scholars in their own right, Christian Kings, who built
a school system and generally encouraged learning and
the extension of the Church.

The Orthodoxy of the Church in the
British Isles ceased with the introduction of papal
bishops after the Battle of Hastings in October of 1066
at which the Norman Duke William, funded by the newly
schismatic papacy invaded Britain.